zoomfrog

Flight 8 is in stores now !

2011-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

Kazu Kibuishi has been publishing and editing Flight since 2004 and this issue will be his last as he continues on with other projects. Read a great interview with Kazu here :http://www.comicbookresources.com/?id=33109&page=article
These are just a couple of images from my take on the old Rabbit / Turtle rivalry.......check your local bookstores for a copy !

2011-03-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

I started using Storyboard Pro software to draw boards on Dan VS and I LOVE it ! The ability to juggle scene order freely is a wonderful thing / not to mention easy re-numbering and camera moves. The ability to copy forward individual layers of art makes for a more pleasing leica for sure. The following are just a few panels I saved......there weren't any location designs for any of this so what you see is often a bit more than a normal panel since I was handing off panels to their studios design dept to use as roughs.

2011-03-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Another thing I like to do ( when confronted with a distinct shortage of location design material ) is to go "google driving" This episode of Dan VS involved Dan losing his cool in a traffic jam in the Hollywood area.....so rather than wait I just went there ! ( well....in virtual google world anyway )

After doing a little research on Mind Game ( awesome trippy anime film ) I started doodling. This production didn't exactly overload me with location designs which I actually find to be quite liberating as a board artist ; consequently I had the freedom to whip up my own ideas and get movin:

study the good guys and learn

2011-03-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

This is just a post of some of my boarding process.....last year I did some boards on a Flash show Jimmy Two-Shoes......but this post featured artwork from the project Dan VS.

While working at Yowza with my good buddy Roger Chaisson we were asked to consider some of the styling and composition cues from the Japanese anime (?) movie Mind Game from Studio 4C ( pretty trippy stuff ! ). COMPOSITION AWESOMENESS....I love anime layout....they almost always get it bang on !!

I did these thumbnail reference panels to remind me of how awesomely composed that movie is

2010-10-05T11:55:00.000-07:00

just a fun piece I did to try out Storyboard pro.....looks like it's time to buy more software ! sound seems to be a bit late-synch...something in uploading I suppose since it does synch on my PC .

Audio is just a random metal track You-Tube suggested....but hey...it fit and almost works!

Too....much...on ...the plate to finish this right now

latest comic

2010-02-08T11:13:00.001-08:00

I just finished up another original story for Flight .....this one will go in their alternate publication "Explorer" for younger readers. Not expected in print for a few months yet I just previewed a mock up here.

the results of my focus group seem to show it will be well recieved hehehehe

Care and Feeding of the Golden Goose

2010-01-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

I recently did a board section for a company that refused to pay for it ( unless I agreed to do more ) When I refused, the supervising producer at the parent company thought I was crazy for "burning a bridge".

I wonder. A very famous ( or infamous ) leader once spoke : Politicians are the same all over ; they promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers " . It was Eisenhower or perhaps Patton that knew the importance of a bridge......which was to get over it as soon as possible and move forward.

I also read something recently on an animation website about career coaching for artists that I took up on and wrote a rebuttal . Enjoy and comment !

Care and Feeding of the Golden Goose
an article on animation production by Dermot Walshe

A few months ago I read a supposed horror story about a young man who was hired to work for one animation company and then took a job somewhere else instead. While some might be tempted to say that this person may have burned a bridge or ruined his career with such a move, I wondered what had really happened.....and reflected on a number of anecdotes and stories I have heard over the years . Certainly I have more than my share of first hand experience with hiring....on both sides of that fence, and I can say that in my twenty years in the business I have seen some companies do it a lot better than others !

All of that got me thinking again about that great void in expectation between companies and artists . Jim Collins said in his book "Good to Great" that great is not a matter of luck or circumstance . Too often companies pat themselves on the back for doing OK but as Jim points out in his exhaustive study it's only the companies that truly focus on being number one or number two in their field that really succeed . To quote Jim here ;"Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn the potential into reality."

Everyone knows the story of the poor farmer who found the golden goose, but I wonder how well the lesson is understood. In the original story the farmer takes care of the goose and it rewards him with eggs of solid gold , but when the farmer becomes impatient and greedy he kills the goose to get to what he believes will be more golden eggs hidden inside.
I have many times been in situations where artists have been recruited or dismissed with what I would call reckless abandon as companies search for a quick fix to whatever crisis situation they are in . Artists that become labelled as having the "wrong attitude" or as being "too precious" drift from one studio to another depending on the season or project. One producer even explained to me in 1995 that all artists are more or less interchangeable and what really mattered was enthusiasm. Strangely enough that same company only received three ( external ) portfolios for layout positions after running full-page recruitment ads in a number of industry magazines including Variety. Clearly the company had a reputation that preceded it . To make matters worse there was one excellent portfolio in the group ; I suggested that hiring such a talented person would be a coup but they had neglected to reply to any of the submissions and only told me that "someone that good would probably leave us soon after anyway "
Artists don't abandon a company for no reason .

I have a long list of similar horror stories from the trenches that I can spare you......but it's with that knowledge that I spare judgement on rumours of bad hires either way.

The question is really if there IS such a thing as a golden goose , and then where are they and how can we tell them apart from the gaggle ? If you permit me I would say listen to the experts.
Long time motivational speaker Tony Robbins often talks about making great transformations in either personal or professional life and he pretty much covers it with these three phrases :

1 : See things for what they ARE....not what you think they are.
2 : Seek advice ; ask good questions from the people who know best.
3 : Act

Of course all of this requires good judgement to work well.......but there is also an old saying that practise makes perfect as long as you learn from your mistakes.

In case any of you recoiled at the mere mention of Tony Robbins listen instead to another expert in the field of animation . Do a youtube search on Ed Catmull lecturing at Stanford . I was particularly struck by some of the things that Ed Catmull said about requirments for success at Pixar :
1 : A culture of truth.....people need an environment where they are not afraid to speak the truth.
2 : Great people are more important than great ideas ; a poor crew will ruin a great idea but a great crew will throw out a bad idea and come up with a better one.
3 : A culture of peers....where artists, technicians and management are respected and paid equally

If your company has seen your gross revenue drop from almost $200 million to nearing $60 million in the last ten years I suspect that you are not performing up to potential . If you are a senior level executive in animation and you dont really understand the success of a TV show like Spongebob then I suspect you don't have merchandise earnings measured in the billions .If you screen a show or film internally and no-one either laughs OR criticizes, you also have a problem . As a CEO said to me a few years back while having coffee ;" we've never been in a multiple offer situation on any of our shows except once....and that was a Disney co-pro ". I humbly suggested that if it was managed well the creative staff could help to fix that, but he replied "I hear you on the creative thing but we know what we're doing". I suddenly got a visual image of a dog chasing it's tail there.....my apologies.

Prominent financial analyst and writer William J. Bernstein in his article The Executioner of Excellence writes that if mutual funds and even hedge fund managers are continuously earning less than market return how can one do better ? His advice is to "actually think for yourself"...."......money managers at large investment companies, banks, and insurance companies, too focused on next quarter’s bottom line and next year’s bonus, gradually disengage from the slow, methodical development of their skills. Add a soupçon of fear of failing unconventionally, stir in a large dollop of groupthink, cook slowly for several years, and competence eventually simmers off. " The conflict between compensation and competence resonates far beyond finance and the corporate world. Bernstein goes on about another industry where returns are measured by quotas "......... a field which requires exquisite judgment in ambiguous situations—exactly the circumstances in which cognitive psychologists have found "external incentives" to be the most corrosive."
What William is alluding to is that if your company rewards management with bonuses for cost saving or earning quotas, then the system will adapt for the short term gains and ruin both the stability and the long term viability of the system. I have often thought that incentives or bonuses in animation ought to be tied to sales success ; can CEO's or boards of directors not see that rewarding producers for being under-budget is actually counter productive in a business that requires a blockbuster hit to earn big ?

Lets take a moment to take on that bugaboo word technology. Strictly speaking, technology just means " a way of doing things" Better technology therefore means "a better way of doing things" .When it comes to the creative process there are innumerable ways of making something......and any number of ways to waste both time and resources. When I was first hired to work on an animation series I was dumbfounded to see the co-directers arguing bitterly over whether a character would carry an umbrella under its arm or by the handle ; the real problem to my mind was that the show itself seemed rather boring. Is there a better technology for "funny" ?
I always remember a great scene where Spongebob yells from his house to Squidword to ask him if he can play his clarinet any......( expecting quieter )......BETTER .

A few years back an associate was heading to China to start an animation company. He had been a lawyer at one time and spent many years in the tech industry with cel phones and consulted with me . I told him very carefully to search for great directors and the best studios he could find and learn what they needed to get better . He insisted that staffing was a lower priority and instead made deals for fitting out a large building with expensive workstations . He has since returned home broke and confused. I had told him to " go find the next Miyazaki" and start small, but he didnt understand the technology of animation .
Technology is variable and most people think it means hardware and software , but how many people know that Miyazakis films STILL employ cel paint technology in many ways. I remember reading that his Oscar- winning film Spirited Away was approximately 50% cel-painted as was Princess Mononoke. It was simply less expensive and more convenient to continue using a crew that was already expert at cel paint, and he complemented that already-existing crew with workstations and digital paint for those that could make the jump to the new method. If you don't know who Miyazaki is you should.

Another serious misconception about technolgy still abounds based on the old Hanna Barbera assembly line method of producing TV series. Many studios or producers feel that scripts should be written by writers and handed to Directors in yet another assembly-line fashion in an effort to control costs and schedules. I myself have a project optioned for development into a feature film, but the first sticking point was the studios' assumption that they would hand the outline over to a "real" writer . Miyazaki himself reminds us that he never had a script for any of his movies and when I mention that to some people they ignorantly insist that it is a technical and factual impossibility to produce a film without a script. Miyazaki only has screencredit as a writer for film copyright reasons and not because there actually was a script.
Yes , it IS technically possible to make a film without a "script" ( but not without a plan ! )..... the industry environment has to evolve to know when it CAN be done and when it can't. No focus group will solve that dilemma ; it takes good judgement and a passion for the craft. Fred Silverman overruled the focus groups that rejected All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore. Bill Wattersons cartoon Calvin and Hobbes was rejected by a focus group that didnt understand it . Miyazaki conceives his own stories and works his own methods. It's an agelong question that confounds humanity as I now remember the story of Polyclitus that I read in the book "The Creators" ( Random House ) . 2500 years ago in Greece a reknowned sculptor was commissioned by a group of patrons to create a statue for public display . Polyclitus took it upon himself to prove a point to those that tried to influence his work :

"Polyclitus made two statues at the same time , one which would be pleasing to the crowd and the other according to the principles of his art . In accordance with the opinion of each person who came into his workshop , he altered something and changed its form , submitting to the advice of each . Then he put both statues on display . The one was marvelled at by everyone , and the other was laughed at . Thereupon Polycitus said , " But the one which you found fault with you made yourselves ; while the one which you marvel at , I made . "

If your animation studio is reeling in this economy while others are experiencing fabulous success, it may be time to hire !

If the golden goose is fed it will reward you.

Just don't let the rumour mill affect your judgement

Dermot

TT CHALLENGE

2009-10-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

I finally got a few pages done as a summary.....the longer version I'm thinking of writing as a fictional drama....but this is something to honor the real story.

old stuff

2009-10-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

A few castle / medieval environments dug from the files recently

more character doodles

2009-10-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

When in doubt ........doodle !

I had a bit of time and started sketching characters again for my graphic novel TT racer project . I'm not 100% certain I want to do a Caniff style...Milt was perhaps too perfect, and I'm wondering if a pencil style might suit. For fun I tried a page of Herge-style characters and then a version of my pencils done in a more Herge manner . Paul Grist is another great contemporary UK comics artist whose style is quite loose and lean....maybe I'll try some sample pages next.

The other few characters are just "stuff" I doodled and thought why not post.

Fossil Hunter

2009-07-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

Just finished up on a book for Orca Publishing called Fossil Hunters . These are just 8 of the 14 black and white pieces ( I ended up doing them in photoshop rather than pencil......so much detail in little pictures for the old B Staedler ).........should be out in 2010.

Rabbit , Turtle and Frog

2009-07-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

interesting news.......Toonbox animation has optioned my concept on the Rabbit / Turtle race rematch . I'm busy doing some redesign in order to get a pitch package ready for MIP in Sept......hope to start writing and fine-tuning for a DVD feature soon !

more freelance bits

2009-04-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of things I did recently.......for the Pirate show pitch ; moving day means dragging the boat to the new home through town .

Also included cover art I did for a young readers chapter book..... for which I'll be doing a bunch of interior art in pencil .

Blip Thumbs

2009-04-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

For the past few months ( despite numerous delays and postponements ) I've been doing boards on another robots show ; this one's now called Bolts & Blip .

Whenever I start boarding for a new show I like to loosen up with some thumbnails.....and this show had some promising race and battle sequences that sounded like a lot of fun . These are some of those first early sketches that I liked .

check the new website here : http://boltsandblip.com/

more doodles

2009-03-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

been killing time again between boards....a little character design for top secret projects and just some fun stuff from the archives.

more Ponders drawings

2009-01-09T16:32:00.001-08:00

I just did some character drawings for my Ponders project / check old posts to see the rest

Tortoise and the Hare......and the Frog !

2009-01-07T12:23:00.000-08:00

I wrote a draft for a sequel to the famous Tortoise and Hare story.......an event that pits flashy new technology against good old teamwork . Who would have ever guessed the two old adversaries might both stand to learn a new lesson ?

These are a few rough sketches ....although the concept itself is another style of storytelling ( somewhere between 8-page graphic novel style and picture book )

Spider Sketch

2009-01-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

More frogs and ponds........I have a short film boarded about a spider and a frog and their titanic battle over a fly . It's a story of revenge gone wrong.......intended to be done in Flash or Toonboom but this sketch is at least more progress .

Kids Can Draw !

2009-01-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

These are a couple of drawings by two of the best young artists I know ! Lauren is my little 5-yr-old daughter and she drew me a little mermaid ; she doesn't quite know how to read or write yet......but she DOES know her way around Photoshop ! Paige just recently turned 8 and drew her Witch and Russell after the characters from one of the Gruesomestein shorts by Mark Ackland and Ricardo Durante ; I guess you could say it's some of their first fan art ?

Congratulations to both Lauren and Paige ....your art is on the internet !

TT racer progress

2009-01-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

and a couple more added

A little bit more progress on the TT racer project : a couple of environment sketches to give an idea of the setting and time period .

some more doodle heads!

2008-12-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

sketches for my TT racer project

another day another doodle

2008-12-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

Still waiting....so I spent time in development on my own projects : this is an early 20th century fishing boat called a herring drifter . It was a particular type of vessel equipped with a steam engine that used to operate in small fleets the seas around the UK .

some more doodles

2008-12-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

Just killing some time today while waiting to continue work on a storyboard .

fighting bug-bots

2008-11-13T18:56:00.000-08:00

A busy week doing some BG art for Lance Taylors Monstories and an undisclosed project involving mechanized battling machines that resemble a scarab and a scorpion .

Now if only I knew how to model in Maya !

Medieval kingdom

2008-11-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

I did a whole bunch of pencil drawings for a castle project in 2004 but I just had a bit of time and thought I'd colour this one up . If you see it large you can really have a tour around .

more frog fun

2008-11-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

added a few sketches of the characters playing about

These are a couple of sketches from my Ponders project

Some older sketches

2008-01-21T04:47:00.000-08:00

I thought it might be funny to show another type of jet/rocket once I had posted my Mach 4 stuff . Every type of design presents it own challenges and rewards . The coconut rocket was actually an idea my daughter Sara gave me for a design I did for a cereal commercial .

Also included in this grab bag of old work are a couple of sketches for a Kraft commercial , some post-it note biker hogs and car doodles , some unpublished model Ts from my book Mean Machines , a toony version of my biker frog and a sketch from another childrens book I'm working on .

More Jets from Mach 4

2008-01-21T04:30:00.000-08:00

One thing that is frustrating to an artist is having

a great project come along just when the time alloted

for the work doesn't allow for finished art

or a more thorough approach to design .

I love drawing tech machinery , but unfortunatley
this project only lasted a few days .

Curious George screengrabs

2008-01-21T04:21:00.000-08:00

Curious George was a very nice project to work on and I really had a great time with the crew at Yowza and Universal .

These are some of the scenes that I laid out .

The BG supervisor on the Yowza crew responsible for the painting seen here was Greg Gibbons

Recent work

2008-01-21T04:14:00.000-08:00

In the fall of 2007 I was working on a few different projects .

These are some sketches that I drew and coloured for

a Christmas film due out this year .

Buggy fun

2007-09-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

I had an idea to do a short little film about a whole bunch of little bug characters and their battle over a single piece of food and I kind of got carried away.....these are just a few of many that I doodled up quickly on some postit notes and coloured in Photoshop .

Oh if I had more time and money !

Comics work

2007-09-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to do some educational mini-comics roughs for a friend to help out on a deadline and this is one I liked a lot .

Sketching

2007-09-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

I love fine art and I have no worries about finding a good hobby for my retirement ! These are a few quick pieces from my little black sketchbook .

Almost as much fun as motorcycle racing and less dangerous !

CG concept design

2007-09-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

Usually I find myself doing design work for TV cartoons in toon style or fuzzy little characters living in some version of a cute world . It was very nice to have a chance to draw some good old sci-fi for a change . These are a few of many rough thumbnails for some jet designs for a TV series in development .

My first book

2007-09-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

In March 2007 my book titled Mean Machines ( Impact publishing ) came out in stores around the world . I was very happy to have a chance to both write and illustrate a "how to draw" book for young artists . I hope to do more books and have three in development .
These are a few of the vehicles from the book .

TT Challenge

2007-09-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

This piece is one of many I have done for an upcoming graphic novel ( possible animated film ) on the first real golden age of motorcycle racing . Between 1920 and 1935 Brooklands and the Isle of Man TT were the ultimate challenge in the sport .

Dawn of the Frog Blog

2007-09-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

Howdy all readers...............this is my humble blog......I need someplace to show my latest doodles and this sure seems easier than renovating my website .

For those that are curious ( and don't know me ) it's not so much about frogs here ; I'm no biologist . I'm an artist working in the animation business and this is a good way to show you some of my recent art . If you're browsing and wondering if I'm available to do freelance work the answer is "very likely" !

It's a huge plus if your job has either motorcycles and/or frogs in it though !